Ensure no corporal punishment in schools, panel tells govt

In a case in which the parents of a former student of Antonio Da Silva School in Dadar had complained their son was subjected to corporal punishment, the Maharashtra State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MSCPCR) has now instructed the state to ensure that such incidents do not occur.

In March 2013, parents of the boy filed a complaint against a teacher, alleging she had chained and paraded their son along with two of his classmates in the school premises. They also alleged that the teacher and the headmistress had forced the child to clean toilets.

“The school education department is directed to submit a concrete mechanism and plan to avoid this type of incident in future,” says the commission’s order.

After the incident, the child’s father decided to withdraw him from the school in June last year. The school, however, issued a leaving certificate (LC) with an adverse remark, which said, “parents of this child have defamed the school”.
The parents subsequently registered an FIR.

Though the MSCPCR does not mention anything on the adverse remark in its order, it had, during the hearings, directed the school to remove the adverse remark from the child’s LC since the matter was sub judice.

“We may approach the commission again as the school has not yet removed the negative remark from the LC,” claimed the child’s mother. The child is currently studying in class 3 in another school.

In its affidavit to the commission, the school trustee had refuted the allegations made by the complainant. “In the reply, she (school trustee) admitted that the teacher was suspended and an inquiry was pending against her. The two accused were also arrested on the charges under section 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 23 (punishment for cruelty to juvenile or child) of the Juvenile Justice Act. Both the accused are now on bail and investigation is going on,” says the commission’s order.

Accordingly, in its order, the commission has directed the investigating officer to submit a status report.